LIFTS Episode 85 - Trump Brings Back Presidential Fitness Test and National Wearable Data Integration

0:00Last couple of minutes, we were talking about the impact that a wearable has on our health. The question is, why is this not part of health care? I went to my doctor about a month ago. I did my annual health checkup. They had no insights about me. So they're just looking at literally a time, like a frozen time, and where you are at that space. They don't even know how you got there. They have no, it's kind of crazy. These issues can be prevented. The answer isn't more drugs. The answer isn't more pills. A number of brands that have been in the Pilates space for a number of years, a number of new brands that have come in to the space recently with some fabulous products.

0:39Are we sort of getting to the sort of top of the bubble in this space now?

0:49Welcome to this week's episode of Lifts. It's 7.30 in the morning. It's the earliest lifts I've done, I think, ever. and I'm here with my co-host Mohamed Iqbal. Mo, how are you this morning? I'm good. Well, I appreciate the early wake up. It's about 10.30 here in DC and actually I'm doing great. It's 64 degrees outside, which is beautiful because it has been scorching the last few weeks in DC. So we had some rain and I went for a nice run this morning. And Paul Kidd. Very good. Well, we were just talking before we started about our, I guess, fitness and health hacks. And one of the things I wanted to share was my progress on this diet.

1:33I've spoken about it before when I came back from the UK. I tried this 20-off for-on eating concept. And apparently, it's called the warrior diet. So as I've been reading into it, and I've done it for about, it must be about five weeks now. and really impressed with the diet because a lot of times when you have a diet, it's something that you have to force yourself to do and probably not something you can continue to do consistently. But I've really found this has fitted into my lifestyle really nicely. And the thing that drove it is you and I had an interview with a gentleman at Connected Fitness early part of the year and we were talking about diet and sleep windows and getting good sleep.

2:15and um and so so i wanted to reduce my eating later on in the day so so what i did with this this one is i kind of finish at six start at about two um i i have my wife does a really nice protein almost like breakfast which is even though it's not really breakfast uh with with predominantly meat uh beef uh bison that kind of stuff with some with some greens then i do um i do a yogurt and some granola about an hour or so after that. And then my final meal is I have a big protein shake with some nuts, avocado, a few scoops of protein. I think that's about it. And so it works for me because you don't seem to be hungry throughout the day.

3:02And I think because you finish a little bit earlier and you start sort of a little bit later, it seems to fit in from a, I'm not hungry. I sleep a lot better because I'm not eating later on in the day. Energy's really, really high. And it's something that even when I get to weekends where I sort of break, I allow myself to break it a little bit. I kind of don't want to break it because it just fits into my lifestyle really well. And from a physical perspective, I did a, I had a, I did a, what was it called? Like bio, what's one of those sort of scanner things that you do? The bioimpedance. Yeah, what's the popular one?

3:41like a that no there's another one yeah i did an in body and um muscle mass has gone up body fat's come down um and i've got i've actually got and i've not had this probably for a long time but i've got a really defined six-pack which um for me at 55 is is pretty you can kind of have a bit of a six-pack where you can see the bubbles and that a little bit but this this is really defined And it's just, I've not actually had to really work hard at it. And although I know different people get on with different diets, it isn't something that probably everybody could do based on their sort of hormones and body type.

4:19I've really found this being a great diet, actually. And I think it's something I could continue to do indefinitely. So there you go. That's my recommendation. I like it. I mean, it's interesting. So you basically eat for four hours. So I think I've, I start eating. It's funny. I have a smoothie right next to me right now, actually. So I drink the smoothie in the morning because I also, because you train in the evenings. I train in the mornings, but I definitely, I have a coffee. I do my training. So today I did some upper body. I did a six mile run, did some recovery and then had a couple meetings.

5:00So the smoothie actually has been really fulfilling because I think you talked about adding avocado. I should do that. I add some dates, about 60 grams of protein, berries, some peanut butter. Probably too much peanut butter. I should cut back on that. Some almond milk. But it actually keeps you full for hours. And I can probably go from now until 3, 4 o 'clock. And I don't know if that's good or not, but just because I'm busy, I sometimes miss having given a light lunch. and then I have a dinner and then I have a snack probably too late. So if I could compress that, which is basically what you've done, you're basically eating the same things that I would eat, but I eat it over a much longer period.

5:45And I've read so much about that too, because your body is working in overtime. Anytime that you consume something, your entire metabolic process gets kicked. So it definitely will take some discipline. I think for me, it's, I'm just so used to eating. I know this is not good, but I'm so used to eating something later. I eat clean, but still later. I think it's just habitual because when you do it in the four hour window, you're actually, you don't want to eat because you're at, you're having, you're almost having to force yourself to get that amount of food in. So, you know, normally where you're like, Oh, I'm a little bit hungry, a little bit hungry on other diets like this one, you're like, I just don't want to eat because I've just stuffed myself.

6:25And I think the key, this is the real key that I've noticed is I used to do my protein shakes first. And I kind of find that, you know, because of there's probably a lot of sugars in it and just things that don't really fill you up and don't really take a lot of digesting. I found that you was kind of ready to eat something else almost like straight away. Whereas if you have this, and I think you've got to get the right food, right meal, right. But I'd have quite a lot of beef. I'd have some sprouts. I'd have some mushrooms, I'd have some cheese in there. So this first meal really took some getting down.

6:58And I have quite a lot of beef as well, about 60 grams or something. So I think if you kick off with that first meal, you're then having to work to digest it. And then you've got to eat again, and you're almost not quite ready to eat again. And then you have your protein, and you're not quite ready for that. Yeah, not in four hours. I don't think I could. I mean, that one meal alone will keep me full for six hours. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where it probably psychologically, you're like, you don't want a snack or anything. You're just like, I'm done with food. I just don't want to eat anything because you're probably digesting that stuff for a long time.

7:28I don't know. Yeah, I think it's just the sequencing of food is, for me, seems to be more important than what you eat. And if you start with the right meal, even though it doesn't seem to feel good to have a big meal for breakfast, I think that kind of sets you up for the rest of the day. How have you done with hydration? Are you drinking more water? Are you finding that you're drinking when you're not eating? I do drink a lot. So the first, as soon as I get up in the morning, I'll drink, hydrate before I caffeinate, as someone told me. So I have quite a bit of water. Then I'll do a couple of espressos in the morning.

8:05And then I seem to be drinking a lot more water, whether it's because of the protein intake or what, I do seem to be drinking a lot. And when I did the scan, that was one of the things that they sort of noted is, you know, to make sure that you, you know, I was a little bit dehydrated. So to kind of up your water intake and electrolytes as well, which I'm probably not doing enough of. And you're probably not doing any alcohol, right? You're still off the alcohol? No, although I'm going to Mexico tomorrow. So I'm probably going to be on the tequila for a week. And then I'm going to knock it on the head until my birthday in late November.

8:41So I'm going to do a... Well, I think we need a feature, given that he's got a six-pack, a shirtless picture of Matthew in the next episode from Mexico. But look, the alcohol, I felt that I went out last night on a date night with my wife, which I actually haven't done in about a month, just because we've been traveling and just couldn't, you know, with kids and all this stuff. It's hard to squeeze it in. So I had two glasses of wine. It didn't feel so bad, but this morning, looking at my recovery score, not good. So I just think that especially when it wasn't even that late, I think we were like old, right?

9:16So we went out at six o 'clock. I was back home by eight. And so plenty of time before bed, but it is just crazy to see the impact, especially if you don't, like, I just don't drink much anymore. I still probably drink more than you, but very, very rarely. I don't remember the last time I actually drank at home. and it um yeah just the impact not good not good so you're able to see that um but that's my health hack is just recognizing this morning the impact that two glasses of very good wine had on me i'm thinking with one of the things that i i think is a is an interesting um idea that i've not yet found and i know people are working on this but i i think i think you need something when you go out maybe at the weekend just to take the edge off the day and i think that's what a glass of wine does but i i don't like fat dehydration it messes up your sleep score and i do think there's there's some interesting things now you know mushroom uh mushroom based uh drinks and um and and uh cbd bhc and although some of those do again sort of mess up your sleep slightly i think i think coming up with something that's that's got enough of a buzz just to you know kind of help you take the edge off the day but but doesn't do all the bad stuff the alcohol i i think that would be a really interesting one it's something i always look for it's like no last weekend so i tried for the first time i went to my friend's house on the jersey shore and um yeah he got into like this cbd drinks they have no calories in it i had two i guess i felt happier but it was it was different and it was fine you know the good thing is is now you can go to the beach there's no need to have any kind of alcohol or drinking anymore i just feel like even culturally right like i remember i'm going to the jersey shore for decades but now and you see it like i don't know anyone looking around yes it was in in mantalokan and a lot of families and all that but very few people having a beer back like it used to be everyone He's a lot of beer bottles and all that.

11:22So I just think that we've panked a lot as a country. I would akin it a lot probably to smoking. And I wasn't in the era when everyone used to smoke. But I would imagine in the 60s and 70s, if you went to the same beach, you'd see a lot of people smoking. Then we went into seeing a lot of people drinking. But it was just, yeah, it was nice. I kicked a couple of those back. I felt happy. I don't know if I was happy because it was a beautiful day on the Jersey Shore. And I was with my friends and family. I don't know. um or if it was the thc because it was a thc and cbd-based rank we've got a number of stories to cover um we can we can dive into the first one i know you've got you did a post on linkedin about this which is um which is kind of we're going to get a little bit political with the first couple of stories but why don't you kick off with um with your uh wearable story mo yeah so i definitely can't so i there's been and there's a lot there's a couple of political things and i guess related to the administration, where this week, there were a few announcements.

12:26The first one is the White House announced an initiative to collect wearable data from citizens and incorporate that into a broader ecosystem and potentially feed that data into insurance companies, into broader healthcare organizations. Look, I ultimately think it's a good thing. There are a lot of concerns around this. I did a LinkedIn post speaking to this. And overall, we as a health industry, people, and we both wear wearables, we see, in fact, I think in our last couple minutes, we were talking about the impact that a wearable has on our health. The question is, why is this not part of healthcare, right?

13:10When 60 % of Americans live with chronic illness, 90 % of healthcare spending goes to treating preventable conditions. Yet our entire healthcare system is designed to wait until disease happens, and then we act. And the facts are kind of nuts here. So one in three Americans already wear a wearable device that tracks heart rate, sleep, stress, glucose, and other things. So if you're already wearing this, why would we not use something to help you be better? I went to my doctor about a month ago. I did my annual health checkup. They had no insights about me. And then the advice that they give me is literally to like exercise more.

13:52Or my, you know, looking at my cortisol level, they probably didn't know that I'm stressed. If they had a world of integration, they would know that, well, you actually spent anywhere from nine to 11 hours a week exercising, right? Right. So they're just looking at literally a time, like a frozen time and where you are at that space. They don't even know how you got there. They have no it's kind of crazy. So the fact that we're now with this said, there are a lot of concerns. There's a lot of concerns around privacy, like is the government going to be surveilling you? How are we going to create interoperability?

14:31So there are a lot of questions and things that we have to solve, but this is how innovation starts. And if we are going to be serious about improving population health, it's going to have to start at the government level. And by the way, we're not the first government to do this. So before people get all crazy, a lot of countries, Singapore has something called Lumi Health that does this. In the UK, the NHS are trialing, you know, using wearables to help fight obesity. in Sweden to actually subsidize smart CGMs for metabolic health. So everyone wants to say, oh, look at Canada, look at the healthcare system in the UK.

15:08They're doing these things, right? They are doing these things. So I'm kind of curious to see the population feedback because we just tend to be so partisan here and we tend not to see the good, but I'm excited for this. Yeah, it's an interesting one because my guess is all of this information is out there. I don't I don't know whether in the U.S. they call the way they hold information. Is it called HIPAA? Is that what they called it? Is it HIPAA? HIPAA is the health insurance, I think, patient, health insurance portability and accessibility app. So in other words, it allows you to, yes, transfer your health data.

15:46Yeah. So it seems as though there's certain things in place which protect people's data and access to data, which I guess is a positive specifically as it relates to this. But I can also see a very strong argument from someone like, well, do we want to give the government more information? How much do they need to know about what's happening to us? Does that give them, what's going to happen to the data? Does it give them more control to collaborate with some of the drugs companies? There's a number of negatives that you can say, but also - But look, they have access to their bank accounts. they could see our credit cards they you know essentially could surveil us through our phones today right so you know you've heard of stories of people going from a high tax date to a low tax date and they're looking you're they're looking at your easy pass they're looking at your phone cell phone signals to really get you because you have to spend six months in a day in the low tax state not to be taxed in high tax state newsflash they're already surveilling you so yeah no i i I get that and I get a lot of this information is there.

16:55And I also get that now bringing technology, a lot of this technology is already out there. So bringing it all together and giving people almost like an instant dashboard of what's going on with who and connecting all the dots. I can see that could be scary for people. But on the other side, there's a huge amount of benefits from being able to do this and connect it with wearables and some of the independent companies that are out there that have this information where you could just be generally be better off by making that happen. I think it comes down to the fundamental question of trust and people generally do not trust the government or our own governments.

17:33And I think that's going to be, from my perspective, the hurdle that they're going to have to get over. Some of these ideas and what technology can do today is fantastic. But I think both in the UK, which is where I'm from, and in the U.S., you can definitely see a lack of trust in the people that are running the countries. And I think that's in future going to be something that people are going to have to figure out how to sort of deal with. I know we're sort of going a little bit off topic with that one, but I can see that. I think you're right. Well, look, let's move on to the next one, too, which is related, right?

18:10So we had that announcement come from the White House. And then you pointed out to me today about Trump reviving the presidential fitness challenge. And I think this is a blast from the past. Donald Trump announced that he wants to bring back the presidential fitness test. Look, for those of us who remember doing the pull-ups and the whole front of class, this is deja vu. I know you grew up in the UK. I grew up here. But this move, beyond the nostalgia, really underscores how health is becoming, how a central political talking point again, especially with growing concerns around youth obesity and sedentary behavior.

18:48Here's a couple of facts. So interestingly, a year ago, I did a post about this. And I have a son who's 15, who was in college. I think this is what resonated with me. He was a freshman last year. And I didn't know that this actually went away. So I was like, hey, Zach, this is an exciting advice. I said, Dad, what are you talking about? Well, I said, we do this fitness test. It didn't change my whole life. He's like, Dad, we're not doing this. In fact, we don't even have to go to PE anymore. That was just completely wild. So for me, I grew up, I moved here in 91, grew up in New Jersey, and my freshman year of high school, right, we had the Pediatric Fitness Challenge.

19:32So you do pull-ups, you run a mile, there's a whole bunch of things. And if you finish in the top 85 percentile, you actually would get something called the Presidential Fitness Award. And for me, I finished at the bottom, right? People think that I'm into fitness and I finished at the bottom, but that was the wake call that I needed to help start my entire fitness and nutrition journey. If that didn't happen, I would not have known where I was and kind of where I fell. So I think that was important. Here's the other thing. We We have RFK Jr. in the White House now. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy created the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

20:11Kennedy was a firm believer in pursuing fitness goals for the entire age span, not just when you're a teenager, but all the way into your later years. And he even said, and this is something I'm going to quote from one of his speeches, Kennedy stated, we do not want the United States to be a nation of spectators. We want a nation of participants in the vigorous life. We are under-exercised as a nation. We look instead of play. We ride instead of walk. Physical fitness is the basis for all other forms of excellence. That was by JFK in 1960. And I wish more people would appreciate that. Today, the saddest thing is that fitness has kind of become partisan in some ways.

20:59And I even see this, right? If I go to a Republican event versus a Democratic event, I don't want to be completely general here, but the reality is that the Republican event, people tend to be more into health and fitness. They tend to work out more. We've talked about this on the podcast before, but our industry is typically central right. Then I go to an event that may be a bit more on the left, and it's almost like they are judging us for being healthy and wanting to care about our, like, instead, the answer is, let's fund more into our public healthcare system. And I'm like, no, these concerns, these issues can be prevented.

21:40The answer isn't more drugs. The answer isn't more pills. And when you think about cutting funding for big pharma and these insurance companies, those investments at a fraction of the cost, you're going to prevent it. What do you think, NoMo? I think it's a great idea. My kids are like yours. They go to school. They do PE. They walk around the running track for a few hours chatting to their friends, and that's it. I think it's sort of disgusting what, you know, the level that it's got to. And I've been sort of talking to our local schools about getting equipment, getting the kids moving because they love to do that sort of stuff.

22:16But you can very easily see that this great idea that seemed to have been discontinued in 2013, been brought back. You can see it's going to become a political issue where people are going to come up with reasons of why that's not a good thing. And it's maybe, you know, sort of isolating certain demographics of the community. And it will become a whole sort of pointless exercise because everything seems to be extremely political when it comes to these types of ideas, which is a shame. But you can kind of see there's going to be a – I'll be interested to see it this morning because it only came out last night.

22:50But I'm sure there's going to be an equal backlash of why that's not a great idea. Right. I know. And it's really unfortunate that we can't just look at issues and take our partisan opinions out and just say, you know what, that's a good idea. And when you look at the root of a lot of the health initiatives, and I think there's been a flip politically in the U.S., right? Things like being fit and healthy. Again, this was a JFK issue. And I'd also add this was bipartisan. So, JFK in the 60s came up with this presidential fitness council. Following him, Nixon came up with the first White House Council for Health, Hunger, and Nutrition.

23:30So, again, bipartisan. Nixon was Republican. JFK was a Democrat. I think this is a great thing. I hope it gets bipartisan support. And I think that it will. Have a look at when you get chance, have a look at, I was just looking at X with some of the comments. So you, there are, you can see it's already started. So maybe next week we'll cover some of the opposing views to that. I'd love to do that. Next story then, we've got free motion launches. This is one that I picked up a couple of days ago. Free motion launches the smart Pilates reformer. Free motion, known for its cable machines and other things, has entered the Pilates space with a digitally connected reformer.

24:11Interesting that, you know, I suppose we've got a number of brands that have been in the Pilates space for a number of years. A number of new brands that have come in to the space recently with some fabulous products. And now we've got the main equipment brands. We've had Technogym, they launched theirs at FIBO, which is a nice spin on my stylish Technogym-esque version of a Palacis Reformer. Now we've got Premotion in the space. I think it makes sense for these companies to be able to provide this as an offering. I just wonder how many brands are going to be able to supply and be profitable by making Reformers, because there just seems to be so many out there now.

24:57And I kind of question, are we sort of getting to the sort of top of the bubble in this space now? And from my perspective, I certainly agree. Everybody you talk to is incorporating Pilates. And there's a huge demand from the sort of Gen Z and millennials for this. But it's some of these new brands a little bit late to the party. I would agree. Look, if you asked me, even you, right, 10 years ago, would either one of us have seen the explosion of Pilates? I don't think we would have. I mean, I know when I was in New Jersey, there were a lot of good Pilates brands out there. I mean, even SLT, which is right in my town in Milburn, New Jersey.

25:43And it was always a bit more of a niche thing, mostly women. And then it just kind of exploded. I think there's a lot of reasons for that. One, you had a lot of athletes, male athletes, including really strong, high-performance ones like Odell Beckham Jr. that credited Pilates for its quick recovery. You had a lot of other modalities, especially mat-based Pilates and other type of things which made it more accessible, come out. then I think you saw some of the backlash or downturn of HIIT, right? Orange Theory at 45. And also some of the science coming out saying that maybe this isn't the best for you.

26:25When you look at all of the longevity influencers coming out saying, all right, strength is good. So what Pilates incorporates is I think mobility, strength, flexibility, a lot of the longevity indicators. So you Pilates, you go for a run or ride and you kind of have the whole package. and it's efficient. And I think it felt accessible. The thing that wasn't accessible was the price. And the thing that wasn't accessible was does your gym have it? Most gyms, I mean, I remember being at Equinox, the Pilates room was kind of locked off. You wouldn't find a reformer on the floor. Today, that's changing.

27:01So I think two things. Number one, because there are more studios, more affordable studios, and you have reformers that are being on the open gym floor, people are able to try it. You also have a lot of influencers who have gotten into Pilates and able to see the change that it has on you. We work with a bunch of Pilates brands. The one that you're referencing with Free Motion, obviously, I know Free Motion well, and iFit. And they acquired a company called ReformRx. And I've known Neil and Yvette, wonderful people. They're a fantastic product. I called it when I first saw it, the Range Rover of Reformers, because it's just like larger, really strong metal, really high quality premium product.

27:41and that's what they acquired. To your point, Technogym had this beautiful reformer come out. It just looks good. You just want to get close to it. But then there are a lot of others up and down the range. Marithew, Bounce Body, Peak Pilates, which is distributed by Core. Yes, there are a lot of options there, but it seems like right now we've not peaked out yet. One of the other brands, we work with Strong Pilates. I'm actually going next weekend to New Jersey to celebrate the 100th studio opening. This is a company that's only been around for a couple of years, and they're opening the 100th studio.